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Badlands

Badlands

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $17.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Please help
Review: Is there a soundtrack available ? I have been unable to find one. Am I correct in believing that some of the music of Carl Orff was used ? If so, please advise the particular piece of music and on what Carl Orff CD I can find same.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Imagistic
Review: Malick is the closest thing America ever produced to Tarkovsky. Despite some sophomoric comparisons to Bonnie and Clyde, this movie rises above social commentary to reach, in some sequences, something absolutely sublime. In one early scene, the two lead characters release a red balloon with mementoes of their time together--there is no social or political idea there...maybe no idea at all. Like this scene, the entire movie is myth made and remade. After fleeing society, they build a tree-house in the forest ala Swiss Family Robinson, in some bizarre reflection of Eden. I think that the fugitives-on-the-run theme might simply have been an excuse to remove the two characters from society, giving them a mythos they could not have had in suburbia. Because the movie's images are often impenetrable--despite all the philistine attempts at analysis--they also become unforgettable. Far and away, one of the greatest movies made in America.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: subtle and evocative
Review: Having seen the movie, just once decades ago, I have been forever haunted by the vivid images of the distracted, casual evil so effectively protrayed by Martin Sheen and the indifferent gullibility of Sissy Spacek. The breathtaking cinematography was enhanced by the music of Carl Orff and Eric Sate. Could this movie have been the inspiration for Gus Van Sandt's use of sky?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent. Superior Filmaking.
Review: I have read the other reviews here and i couldn't help but add a few things. I absolutely loved

this film, but it bears some interest that it is

partly based on the Merriweather murders of the

late 1960's. Mallick seems to inherit an america

quite different from the on we had become

accustomed to. He takes very familiar motifs from

american culture and puts a new spin on it, one

which would have been impossible before the

Vietnam War. If you find that you like this film i

would highly recommend a few other little things.

First, Bruce Springsteens Nebraska album which

was inspired in part by the movie and a book

about the Merriweather murders. Second, and more

unrelated Ian Fraziers: The Great Plains which is

a book of nonfiction about the history and

culture of the Great Plains. Finally, in emotion

and temperment Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing,

which has a similar feel to it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Im Speechless
Review: Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 99,buy Badlands.If I could offer you only one tip for the the future buying Badlands would be it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great and suprisingly moving film
Review: I first saw this film on AMC many years ago while still in high school and was completely unprepared for the effect it would have on me. I had first heard of the movie from Danny Peary's book CULT MOVIES, yet nothing I read came close to communicating just how amazing BADLANDS really is. Likewise, it would be impossible for me to put into words precisely how great this movie is. You simply have to experience it for yourself. After that check out director Terence Malick's second film, DAYS OF HEAVEN. It's even better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the Greatest Films of all Time
Review: Terrence Malick's stunning debut is quite simply one of the greatest films ever made. It also contains what is the best cinematography ever commited to film. The brutal nature of the crimes the two lovers on the run commit is neither condoned nor condemed, but Malick simply chooses to let the audience observe and make their own judgements. The performance given by Spacek in one of her first film roles is incredible and the voiceover used by Malick demonstrates how the girl may have been taken in to running off with a murderer by showing how the teen magazines and TV she has been exposed to have disaffected her morals. Sheen is quite simply the most charismatic psycopath in cinema history and his pitch perfect rendition of James Dean is impeccable. The script is wonderfully paced and Malick's direction is nothing short of magesterial. An indisputable masterpiece of American Cinema.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Stunning Debut from Malick
Review: Unlike the first viewer, I did not find this campy (although there are blackly humorous moments in the film). The film is powerful and beautiful. Malick has a stunning visual sense (apparent also in his only other film of the 1970's DAYS OF HEAVEN) that makes this film a wonder to experience. A truly great film!!! Also, exciting for us Malick fans, 1998's THE THIN RED LINE his first film since the terrific DAYS OF HEAVEN.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: surreal tapestry of the Kerouac character turned killer
Review: Martin Sheen turns in a believable performance as an empty and rudderless sociopath. Great Camp.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Being Terry Malick
Review: As a Movie: "Badlands" is durn-near-perfect. It contains first-rate acting, direction, and plot. The plot is based loosely on the Starkweather murders of the 50's, with Martin Sheen as a sociopathic kid with James-Deanian charisma, and Sissy Spacek as his jailbait muse. Sheen seduces the bored, well-to-do pubescent, kills her father, and takes her (willingly) on the lam. The plot is well-suited to the 70's style of filmmaking: string a bunch of vignettes together and hope your actors inhabit the roles consistently enough to make the movie cohere. Sheen is manic, feeding off of his love for Spacek, while Spacek seems to be following along as if she has nothing better to do. Both actors are shockingly blase about the increasing number of murders "necessary" to keep themselves out of handcuffs.

Malick's direction is deliciously slow. Long, languorous takes with few edits. Lots of artistic cutaways to rustling leaves (my favorite: a cut to a trapped chicken for no apparent reason), or the looong prairie. This makes you experience how the characters must feel -- that they're alone in a world living at their own pace.

As a DVD: I wasn't paying much attention to grain, jumps, or other such videophilia. What I *can* say is that it's a pretty nice transfer according to my eye. It's widescreen, so you can appreciate Malick's framing in full splendor. Extras are slim to none, but I think this is one of those films where extra information is at best unnecessary, and at worst damaging to the feel of the film.

Because of the nonlinear plot and first-rate acting, I suspect this movie would stand up to many repeated viewings. I'd say it's worth buying.


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